‘Nature of FBC Media contract was illegal’

Taxpayers’ money should never be spent on party politics because that is clearly corruption.

COMMENT

The Barisan National government in Malaysia is now one of the oldest regimes in the world.

Very many countries have managed to shake off the sort of party dictatorships that were set up by the likes of Tun Dr Mahatir Mohamad in the 60s, but Malaysia just failed in 2008.

One of the effects of this situation is that members of BN tend to confuse their own party with the government.

In fact there should be a clear distinction and taxpayers’ money should never be spent on party political matters, because that is clear corruption.

This is one of the many issues raised by the FBC Media contract.

It is quite possible to argue that for Malaysia to contract a foreign PR company to promote the country in the world media in order to assist business, tourism and good international relations is a perfectly legitimate use of government money.

However, because of BN’s lazy confusion between national and party interests, the contract with FBC went far further than that.

Forged between the prime minister’s own office directly and FBC Media, the contract was much more about promoting Najib Tun Razak himself and denigrating his enemies than it was about promoting the country of Malaysia.

Worse still, the nature of the contract was also patently illegal!

Only a fool or a crook would not have questioned the services that FBC Media was offering to their multi-million dollar clients, like Taib Mahmud and Najib.

Personal PR scam

FBC was guaranteeing slots on international TV news shows that its own production arm was involved in producing!

The deafening silence from the PM’s and CM’s offices over the past week has left us to reach our own conclusions on the matter.

That conclusion must surely be that, both crookedly and foolishly (given how easily the matter has been exposed), BN’s top leadership spent Malaysia’s money on a personal PR scam.

But, even worse still, this wasn’t just a positive party political PR junket for Najib, Taib and their fellow BN leaders.

As we revealed in the most recent story on this dirty tricks scandal on Sarawak Report, a good chunk of these global strategic communications campaigns, commissioned by Najib and Taib, was directed into a mean and vicious defamation exercise against their party political opponents.

BN has not just been content with pursuing the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, through the courts in Malaysia and giving credence and support to every piece of dirty propaganda against him locally.

They have now been caught out funding a concerted campaign to bad mouth him and destroy his reputation in America and internationally.

Zero response

This was pure party politics of the most dishonourable and deceitful kind and Najib had clearly commissioned FBC Media and their colleagues at Josh Trevino’s aptly named company, Rogue Strategic Services, in Texas to do it.

They had no business using millions of ringgit of taxpayers’ money to fund this outrageous party political attack.

Way back last year PKR’s general-secretary Saifuddin Nasution asked the government for an explanation for all the money that had been taken out of the budget to pay for FBC’s global strategic communications campaign – over RM57 million over the past two years.

BN provided zero response at the time.

Now that we have been able to supply the details, it is time they did come up with some answers.

Otherwise, they deserve to be judged shortly on this matter at the ballot box and also potentially in the courts, as a political class that has become so corrupted through their long decades of power that they can no longer distinguish between what belongs to the state and what is theirs to spend – or indeed between what is decent and what is plain dishonourable and stupid.

Clare Rewcastle is the founder/editor of Sarawak Report. She is also an FMT columnist